Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Matt and I'm Brad. This is park Landia,
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio. We sold our loft
Speaker 1: in Chicago, moved into an r V, and now we're
Speaker 1: talking in the country full time with our dog Finn,
Speaker 1: exploring America's national parks. And today we're bringing you another
Speaker 1: episode of Boon Docking with Brad. Now today we are
Speaker 1: going to be discussing back to basics. Before we even
Speaker 1: jumped into our V full time, we had to sell
Speaker 1: off our stuff. We had to fix our loft to
Speaker 1: sell it. We had to talk with friends. We threw
Speaker 1: yard sales, groad sales, We went to the um Goodwill
Speaker 1: and gave well donations. Uh, we had to do a
Speaker 1: lot of different things in order to do this. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of mental minimalization and physical mentaliza minimalization. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure, it was emotional and stressful and in addition
Speaker 1: to just being a lot of work and preparation. And
Speaker 1: it's different, much different than like moving because I've moved
Speaker 1: several times, especially in and around Chicago, and this was
Speaker 1: really different because now I'm having to go through pretty
Speaker 1: much each and every material possession in way, whether I
Speaker 1: need it or not, which we could put it in storage,
Speaker 1: or if we put it in storage, yeah, which there's
Speaker 1: a whole another thing. Yeah, And then like there's this
Speaker 1: this mental minimalization that you have to go through because
Speaker 1: you're realizing that you're giving up this city. There's so
Speaker 1: much to do there, there's so many things to to
Speaker 1: remember and to people to talk to and say goodbye,
Speaker 1: and and what you're doing is you're trying to like
Speaker 1: get ready to go on the road for a long
Speaker 1: period of time. And what I don't think a lot
Speaker 1: of people realize is that there's this mental piece where
Speaker 1: you have to like restructure how you think, how you feel,
Speaker 1: how you act um to be able to focus on
Speaker 1: RV living because it is such an undertaking in the beginning.
Speaker 1: So when I talk about like mental minimalization, it's really
Speaker 1: just trying to refocus that into what we need for
Speaker 1: the RV. And so when you start thinking about, Okay,
Speaker 1: I have a ten ft by twenty six ft space
Speaker 1: to put all of my belongings in, how do I
Speaker 1: do that? Yeah, it's definitely not easy. We couldn't take
Speaker 1: your childhood desk, but we did put that in storage. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, but it's still it's one of those sentimental things.
Speaker 1: So you know, we had to find out what it was.
Speaker 1: And so I had to take a couple of trips
Speaker 1: to the storage in Indiana, to the farm, and it
Speaker 1: was a it was a journey for sure. Yeah, I know,
Speaker 1: like for me too, I needed to specifically find items
Speaker 1: or keep items that made me feel at home, because
Speaker 1: that was really hard. Leaving Chicago was really hard, especially
Speaker 1: for me because I was there for so long and
Speaker 1: was so rooted there and leaving was just a real
Speaker 1: emotional struggle. So I knew I needed to get items
Speaker 1: that would make me feel mentally comfortable, and that means
Speaker 1: like movies and games and books and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: But I was used to having in using and a
Speaker 1: regular basists. I remember that, uh, Luise, you and her
Speaker 1: went to a little store and bought a mini cactus cacti,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know you wanted to bring that because
Speaker 1: you know that's something that would make you think of her. Um.
Speaker 1: I told you, Louise that Matt would even be able
Speaker 1: to kill a cactus. And we're sorry to say that
Speaker 1: about eight months in, I don't even know lasted that long,
Speaker 1: I like killed it in record. I was trying to
Speaker 1: give you some I was really trying to give you
Speaker 1: some extralyway here. I don't know, I don't know it
Speaker 1: has it has since passed. Um. And then like Maggie
Speaker 1: gave you the neon cactus sign that's like still next
Speaker 1: to our bed. That's like we had like uh, double
Speaker 1: sided sticky taped it right to the sides. That's a
Speaker 1: little nightlight, uh for when we wanted to glow. And
Speaker 1: so it's just really you know, there's those things. You
Speaker 1: see them and they remind you of the people around you,
Speaker 1: and that's great. I can handle like inanimate objects, but
Speaker 1: living things, Yeah, Finn, it's great, but exactly yeah, Finn
Speaker 1: is like yeah, then Finn is very well take care
Speaker 1: of and spoiled, so we don't have to worry about
Speaker 1: that at least um. But yeah, So you know there's
Speaker 1: those like things you're like, Okay, it's not necessary to
Speaker 1: have it, but it's something that you want and it
Speaker 1: helps you with that memory or that feeling of that friend.
Speaker 1: And and so there's things like that you bring. That's
Speaker 1: why we have photos up in our r V and
Speaker 1: all these different little aspects to to make it really
Speaker 1: more homie. Well, that's a question Uh, we get asked
Speaker 1: a lot, or like I get people ask me a
Speaker 1: lot like how do you make it feel? Or like
Speaker 1: what do you recommend you know, really basic questions like
Speaker 1: for people moving into an RV for the first time
Speaker 1: and how to feel comfortable with it. And my one
Speaker 1: of my number one recommendations is doing stuff like hanging photos,
Speaker 1: not framed or anything that's you don't really have the
Speaker 1: space for that and it's not necessary. But like what
Speaker 1: we do is just having photos that we printed out
Speaker 1: and we literally just kind of tape them up essentially,
Speaker 1: so they don't clothes line pit. Yeah, so they don't
Speaker 1: take a physical room. They're just adhered right to the
Speaker 1: cabinets and stuff. And it goes a long way because
Speaker 1: it's not only does it live en up the space,
Speaker 1: but you're surrounded by these positive memories and friendly faces
Speaker 1: and it's really uplifting, it really is, and uh, you
Speaker 1: know getting actually, God, we had a lot. We have
Speaker 1: a lot of collections. Um, we have a tiki mug collection.
Speaker 1: I had a liquor collection. I did have a record collection,
Speaker 1: but I ended up selling that before going on the
Speaker 1: road because I don't know why. I probably shouldn't have
Speaker 1: but that's okay. They're in a good home and everything
Speaker 1: is good there and people are using them, so that's
Speaker 1: what matters. Records are meant to be played, that stored,
Speaker 1: and I just didn't want them to go bad because
Speaker 1: they were in a storage area and not like temperature controlled.
Speaker 1: So yeah, but I sold. I mean I was at
Speaker 1: least four or five records in there. UM and our
Speaker 1: tiki mugs. We had to wrap them all up, box
Speaker 1: them all up, label them. We took down our National
Speaker 1: Parks wall which has to travel on one side and
Speaker 1: traveled to on the other. Um, and then it has
Speaker 1: all well had nine national parks at the time, so um,
Speaker 1: all their postcards in these beautiful frames and basically as
Speaker 1: we traveled to them, we would move the frame from
Speaker 1: one side to the other and then we collect knickknacks
Speaker 1: to fill gaps and a beautiful wall. Um. But we
Speaker 1: had to pack all that away. We can't bring that
Speaker 1: all into our v but we did bring one sign
Speaker 1: and that's the Jack carrollac quote. Their suitcases are piled
Speaker 1: on the sidewalk again, yet there's longer ways to go
Speaker 1: because the road is life. Um, and that's hanging on
Speaker 1: our fridge now and so we kept that one part
Speaker 1: of the wall because it's a beautiful quote and it's
Speaker 1: on this beautiful piece of wood um that our friends
Speaker 1: at Tiftwood in New Mexico UM made for us UM
Speaker 1: when we were getting that National Parks wall together. And
Speaker 1: so there's just so many beautiful aspects that we wanted
Speaker 1: to bring with us that we couldn't. And then close
Speaker 1: Matt had he actually had our closet space you did,
Speaker 1: and actually I remember one Christmas he surprised me by
Speaker 1: reducing it to half of it and he actually allowed
Speaker 1: me to have half the space after three years of
Speaker 1: being married. So that was like a Christmas gift to
Speaker 1: me one year because I was like, I don't have
Speaker 1: any room and he did that for me. So that
Speaker 1: was really nice. Yeah, because in addition to having this
Speaker 1: whole closet, I also had a big armor and I'm like,
Speaker 1: Merry Christmas, here's half a closet that you are entitled too,
Speaker 1: but I have refused to give me. But then we
Speaker 1: had to reduce even more and so now I mean
Speaker 1: it's gross, like we're talking about. That was a four
Speaker 1: ft deep by fifteen ft wide um with two like
Speaker 1: racks high where you can hang clothes. Um. And then
Speaker 1: Matt finally reduced his to half of that and then
Speaker 1: from there, now we have a two ft by three
Speaker 1: ft by five ft tall box for mats hanguble clothes,
Speaker 1: and three drawers too small or too shallow, you know,
Speaker 1: four or five inches tall drawers, and then one that's
Speaker 1: like a foot deep. And that's all he gets, basically nothing. Um.
Speaker 1: So what we had to do is we had to
Speaker 1: find like, okay, these are the good clothes. We don't
Speaker 1: want to bring these on the road because they will
Speaker 1: get ruined. And there's some clothes that we did and
Speaker 1: you know what, they're used so much that you know, um,
Speaker 1: we never had to really deal with this in Chicago
Speaker 1: because we didn't like do that. But like we have
Speaker 1: hats that are literally were this beautiful black color and
Speaker 1: now they like have brown spots because they've been out
Speaker 1: in the sun so much and we wear them consistently
Speaker 1: and constantly. Um. And so there's just different things that
Speaker 1: you have to like make sure that you don't bring
Speaker 1: your nice, nice clothes, but bring a nice set of
Speaker 1: clothes so that way you can go out on a
Speaker 1: date together and things like that. So these are things
Speaker 1: that we had to think about. It's just all this
Speaker 1: minimalizing and and just trying to figure out what are
Speaker 1: necessities to be able to live this lifestyle. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: like you were saying board games, that was another collection.
Speaker 1: We probably had over eight board games because you probably
Speaker 1: like FT to sixty. Yeah, I mean that's still on
Speaker 1: the high end. But we had a good amount of
Speaker 1: board games. Probably, No, we had more than that, definitely
Speaker 1: more than that. So we'll agree to disagree. But we
Speaker 1: ended up bringing five with us, and now we have
Speaker 1: like acquired five more somehow. Yeah, they fell up action
Speaker 1: of the aret, like very different cupboards. Right above our bed,
Speaker 1: we have all of our little uh board games and
Speaker 1: you know there's ones like Trekking the National Parks essential. Um,
Speaker 1: then there's that train game and I might Ticket to
Speaker 1: Rub such a fun game. Those are two very similar,
Speaker 1: different but similar. We need to play that game. We do.
Speaker 1: I really misplaying problem. It's like a lot of the
Speaker 1: board games we have are meant for a minimum of
Speaker 1: three people. Well, we can play Ticket to Ride just
Speaker 1: the two of us, but you would always get mad
Speaker 1: at me. Be it's the more people you play it
Speaker 1: with the better, because it's just more fun that way,
Speaker 1: but also like kind of softens the blow and I
Speaker 1: feel less betrayed by people. You said it, you said
Speaker 1: by you go ahead and keep it, So that's the ideal,
Speaker 1: And like Ticket to Ride, I would just get too
Speaker 1: annoyed with Yeah, no, and you know what I'm When
Speaker 1: you have other people, you can actually like turn them
Speaker 1: against me, and that's what you do. And if they
Speaker 1: want to do that and they're on their welcome to
Speaker 1: That's why you'll never play Monopoly with me because I'm
Speaker 1: too good at it and I just hate that game terrible.
Speaker 1: It tears apart families. Yes, but yeah, so we had
Speaker 1: to decide do we bring Monopoly, and somehow we had
Speaker 1: four different types of Monopoly people the National Parks regular
Speaker 1: Mario Mario, Oh my gosh. Now we just have the
Speaker 1: National Parks version, which is that definitely makes it like better,
Speaker 1: but we still don't play it because, yeah, I won't
Speaker 1: play it like with you. I played it with like
Speaker 1: my siblings one and that is true. Yeah, he won't.
Speaker 1: And I love that game like I love playing Monopoly,
Speaker 1: and you're too devious. Yeah, I even tell you my
Speaker 1: strategy and you still don't like, Well, I don't know
Speaker 1: get it. I can't do that game, which is the
Speaker 1: worst strategy now that I think about it, because I
Speaker 1: realized it's gentrification. Um, exactly what you're doing now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just realized I'm a horrible human being when I
Speaker 1: play Monopoly. Yeah, you're just realizing. Uh, you are listening
Speaker 1: to park Landia from my heart radio. Hi, I'm Matt
Speaker 1: and I'm Brad. This is park Landia. So there's just
Speaker 1: a lot of different things that you have to like
Speaker 1: really condense. I mean even your potting pans. Like who
Speaker 1: would think that you couldn't bring all your pottent pans.
Speaker 1: We only have like seven eight of them, but like
Speaker 1: literally now we're allowed to have like two. We have
Speaker 1: our like frying pan and are pot um and it's
Speaker 1: a small pot not a big one. Um. But basically
Speaker 1: we had to just find these things, and you know,
Speaker 1: there's some things we had to get rid of or
Speaker 1: we put them in storage for a kitchen stuff because
Speaker 1: we had to get like foldable or stackable or different
Speaker 1: things like I can't bring all of my cocktail glasses,
Speaker 1: like I have my coupes, my highballs, my rocks classes,
Speaker 1: you know, all these different kinds of cocktail glasses, beautiful
Speaker 1: vintage ones. I mean, I love I love making cocktails. Um,
Speaker 1: that's something you might not know about me. But I
Speaker 1: make my own bidders when I have space. And there's
Speaker 1: a lot of like creative outlets that I have around
Speaker 1: cocktails and making making them. And that's because I got
Speaker 1: sick on Cosmos when we were first dating, because we're
Speaker 1: watching Real Housewives and drinking Cosmos, and um, I said,
Speaker 1: I'll never do that to you again. So I had
Speaker 1: to learn how to makes for real. Yeah, Cossa poltins, No,
Speaker 1: I can't do those. I like martinis, but Cosa polsans
Speaker 1: are too sweet and I had like two of them
Speaker 1: and you probably made them doubles now they're probably triples
Speaker 1: like that. It was bad, Like I shouldn't have making
Speaker 1: cocktails at that point. Ever since then, when I seen
Speaker 1: Matt crawled up on the floor and then after something
Speaker 1: went very wrong, I was like, okay, that's right. I
Speaker 1: remember like waking I don't remember much. I remember like
Speaker 1: waking up. Probably crawled up in the people position, like
Speaker 1: on the bathroom floor. Yeah, I throw him as a
Speaker 1: pillow and I'm I'm just gonna leave him there. Because
Speaker 1: I don't want him to I just don't want to
Speaker 1: move him better. But I made sure he was okay.
Speaker 1: So don't think I'm just I Matri had water and
Speaker 1: I gave him telling all and I you know, I
Speaker 1: sat there with him for hours. I even fell asleep
Speaker 1: on the floor, just making sure he was good. And
Speaker 1: then um, then I just I went finally, like went
Speaker 1: onto the couch because he was okay. But and it
Speaker 1: wasn't as dramatic as this sounds. So anyway, we don't
Speaker 1: make hotsmos in the r V. UM. Yeah, so there's
Speaker 1: just so much like you know, you have all this space.
Speaker 1: The other day, we went into a friend's house, um,
Speaker 1: and we I was like, Matt, when is the last
Speaker 1: time we've been in a home? And he was like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's probably like two months ago, um, at my dad's house.
Speaker 1: And I said, what, like, just think of this concept
Speaker 1: of not being in a home, any home, your own home,
Speaker 1: any home for two months. You're living in ten by
Speaker 1: space and so when you go into this home, you're
Speaker 1: like it's so gigantic, Like their bathroom was bigger than
Speaker 1: our r V. Legit like no joke, And so you
Speaker 1: just have to remember, like when you're minimalizing, minimalized to
Speaker 1: your bathroom, that's about the size that you get, um
Speaker 1: in most cases. But uh, it takes a lot. It's
Speaker 1: a mental it's a physical thing, it's an emotional thing
Speaker 1: because you have to part ways. Like you know, I
Speaker 1: have a lot of like marine corps like memorabilia and things,
Speaker 1: and I had to pack all that away and my
Speaker 1: dress blues um from the Marines and you know, so
Speaker 1: I had to pack all that stuff away. Um, I
Speaker 1: have a lot of memories notes um, like about my
Speaker 1: martial arts days and all these things that I can't
Speaker 1: just go to and get inspiration from or like remember
Speaker 1: where I came from, And so a lot of that
Speaker 1: just goes away. So you just kind of have to
Speaker 1: focus on what is absolutely a necessity versus anything else.
Speaker 1: So you have all these memories and you put them
Speaker 1: all away. But what did we gain from that? Well,
Speaker 1: we've gained a lot. We've made a lot of memories
Speaker 1: together because it kind of refocuses everything and we spend
Speaker 1: more time together doing stuff, more time talking because there's
Speaker 1: less distractions for sure, and less space. Like we're not
Speaker 1: not that are loft is huge or anything, but like
Speaker 1: you know back then, like I could be in one
Speaker 1: room doing something, you could be in the other room
Speaker 1: doing something. And it's nice that things have gotten cozier
Speaker 1: with less distractions, and we do more stuff together, whether
Speaker 1: it's watching and with other people. We meet new people,
Speaker 1: We talked to new people. Because we don't have much
Speaker 1: within our v we we definitely push ourselves out to
Speaker 1: just talk to more people and visit and explore more.
Speaker 1: That's good too. Yeah, I feel like we've made a
Speaker 1: really broad network of acquaintances and even friends across the country,
Speaker 1: which is really nice and comforting, because that was a
Speaker 1: big struggle, was just like leaving that social safety neut
Speaker 1: of Chicago in a sense, and then in the in
Speaker 1: the subsequent like year and a half, like making connections
Speaker 1: with people all over the country and being like now
Speaker 1: I don't feel so tied to one place. I feel
Speaker 1: much more comfortable. There's freedom where I feel like Albuquerque
Speaker 1: is my backyard. I feel like um Portland's Maine is
Speaker 1: my backyard, or Land at Atlanta. These are all places
Speaker 1: that are just amazing. And I remember when we were
Speaker 1: in Nashville, we met a couple Cameron and Jeremy from
Speaker 1: Atlanta and they became great friends. Uh. This past Thanksgiving,
Speaker 1: we actually spent things like friends Giving with them in
Speaker 1: Atlanta because we were in Atlanta and we were you know,
Speaker 1: we were working and making sure to try to connect
Speaker 1: with people, and so we've made these great friendships at travel.
Speaker 1: We did not meet him in Atlanta, so it's weird
Speaker 1: that we would just be in Atlanta and now we're
Speaker 1: friends and we went out multiple times, we met their friends. Um,
Speaker 1: and it's just it's really inspiring. The things that you
Speaker 1: gain aren't exactly physical items. They are relationships, they're people.
Speaker 1: There are relationship with earth, with national parks, with wildlife
Speaker 1: and ecology and all these beautiful aspects of what it
Speaker 1: really means, what life means. Yeah, and with Finn too,
Speaker 1: Like that's a big thing because like in Chicago, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we didn't ever take him downtown or anything. We didn't
Speaker 1: go sight seeing with Finn. He was all he really
Speaker 1: got to do and see was explore the neighborhood and
Speaker 1: wander around. There's a park at the end of the block,
Speaker 1: which is lovely, but like not much like change. He
Speaker 1: would just do the same thing. And when we were
Speaker 1: in Portland, Maine, watching him, he was there was just
Speaker 1: it was full of wonderment. And yeah, he's seen so
Speaker 1: much and we've done so much with him, and his
Speaker 1: enthusiasm is very clear. He has a very emotive face.
Speaker 1: And you can see how we went on a couple
Speaker 1: of hikes with him in a Katie And National Park
Speaker 1: in Maine, and not only did he pulled his own
Speaker 1: he you know, his tiny little dog with little legs,
Speaker 1: was able to walk for miles, but he was scrambling
Speaker 1: in like, in and out of little rocks and along
Speaker 1: the shore, and I was blown away and it really
Speaker 1: inspired me. I'm like, wow, your enthusiasm, it's beautiful. Like
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm closer to the meaning of life
Speaker 1: than I've ever been. And that's just like seeing people
Speaker 1: seeing it through Finn, meeting people, talking with people, doing
Speaker 1: something for somebody else. And that's what I fin Field.
Speaker 1: Finn has done for us for so long, and now
Speaker 1: it's nice to see that for him. But that makes
Speaker 1: me me happier than any monetary value out there. Is
Speaker 1: just seeing something done for somebody else, or seeing somebody's
Speaker 1: energy spike because they're in love with the world in nature. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's a wonderful thing and that's been a really rewarding aspect.
Speaker 1: For sure, you've been listening to park Landia, a show
Speaker 1: about national parks. Parkland is a production of My Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: created by Matt Carouac, Brad Carouac and Christopher has theotis
Speaker 1: producer and edited by Mike John's. Our executive producer is
Speaker 1: Christopher has the Otis. Our researcher, It's Jefflyn shield. A
Speaker 1: special things goes out to Gabrielle Collins, Chris to Waters
Speaker 1: and the rest of the Parklandia crew and Hey listeners,
Speaker 1: If you're enjoying the show, leave us a review on
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts. It helps other people like you find our show.
Speaker 1: You can keep up with us on social media as well.
Speaker 1: Check out our photos from our travels on Instagram at
Speaker 1: Parklandia pod and join in on the conversation and our
Speaker 1: Facebook group Parklandia Rangers. From our podcasts My Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows, and as always, thank you
Speaker 1: for listening.